Improved box for coating daguerreotype-plates



UNITED STATES PATENT rrrcE.

JOSEPH H. TOMPKINS, OF BUFFALO, NEW YORK.

IMPROVED BOX FOR COATING DAGUERREOTYP'E-PLATES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 14,122, dated January 15, 1856.

To @ZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, JOSEPH H. ToMPKINs, of the city of Buffalo, in the county of Erie and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement on the Chemical Box now in Common Use for Coating Daguerreotype Plates with Chemical Vapors; andI do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference being had to the annexed drawings, making a part of this specification, in which- Figure I is a perspective view, Fig. II a longitudinal section, and Fig. III a transverse section, of thecompress represented by K K L in Figs. I and II.

In Figs. I and II, where similar letters represent like parts, B B is a wooden box. S is a sliding cover to the box. J J is a glass or stoneware jar. D is a porous diaphragm in the jar. C is an orifice in the bottom of the jar. E is au india-rubber tube. F is a glass flask. K K are the levers of a compress. h is a wire hinge in this compress acting as a common fulerum to the levers K K. L is a metal regulator of this compress. t is a pivot passing loosely through the regulator. e is another pivot or peg on which the teeth of the regulator L catch, and P is a daguerreotype-plate.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my improved chemical box, I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

In the chemical box now in common use bromide of lime is placed in the bottom of the jar and the daguerreotype-plate is coated by the vapors arising from this bromide; but as this bromide of lime is sometimes strong and sometimes weak, daguerreotypists experience great trouble in endeavoring to coat their plates with uniformity. To remedy this trouble is the object of my improvement. To do this I construct the wooden box for inclosing the jar, as well as the sliding cover, in the usual known form. Into this box I tix a glass or stoneware jar made inl the usual known forms7 excepting that in the bottom I make an orifice surrounded by a projecting neck, as shown in the accompanying drawings at C. Over this neck I stretch one end of the india-rubber tube E of any desirable length, and to the other end of the tube, in a similar manner, I attach the open flask F. About midway of this tube I attach the compress K K L, which consists of two levers k 7c, made from the longitudinal section of a tube (out at one end beveling forty-five degrees) and joined at 7i by a wire hinge as a common fulcrum. These levers are worked by forcing apart. the long arms, when the short arms arebrought to bear upon the tube and compress it, being retained in their respective situations by the toothed regulator L, which is loosely fastened by a pivot tin one lever and catches its teeth on a peg e in the other.

About midway in the jar and parallel to the bottom I iix a porous diaphragm D. Upon this diaphragml scatterseveralounces of slaked lime or any other desirable substance for retaining chemical vapors. I then partially fill the iiask F with bromine, when the vapors spontaneously rise and pass through the tube Ezinto the lower chamber of the jar, and are thence slowly filtered through the diaphragm D, when they are absorbed by the lime and supply the place of those vapors which have been previously given off in coating the plate P-that is to say, such is the continuous action after the lime has been sufficiently impregnated with bromine vapors-which im preguation Ilirst effect. The bromide of lime I keep of a (nearly) uniform degree of strength by means of the compress K K L, which regulates the amount of vapor admitted to the chemical box through the tube E by lessening or enlarging its diameter. Thus, also, Ikeep the supplyof bromine vapors in the chambers of the chemical box equal and only equal to the demand.

I do not claim the box containing the jar, as that has long been in use; but

Vhat I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

The construction and use, in combination with the common coating-box, of the jar JJ, with the porous diaphragm D and the oriiice c, in connection with the tube E and flask F, together with the compress K K L, and its application for the purpose of impregneting the lime or any other substance, for retaining chemical vapors in the coatingboX with the Vapor of bromine, and for the further purpose of continuously furnishing the chambers of the coating-box with a more regular, uniform, and'consistent supply of the Vapor of bromine, or any other sensitizing chemical, substantiallyT in the manner herein set forth.

JOSEPH H. TOMPKINS.

Attest:

GEORGE P. HOWARD, IRA G. TOMPKINs. 

